Friday, September 2, 2011

Pumpkin-Banana Bread with Spelt Flour

I’m going to get real with you for a second. I’ve been craving a delicious pumpkin bread since August. Something about warm, cinnamon-y, pumpkin bread sounded real comforting! I wanted to make it more healthy as well, since I’m trying to do that with most of my recipes I make now. How can you make a baked good more healthy but still taste good? It is simple, don’t sacrifice flavor and quality. Bananas work perfectly when making a recipe more healthy. Thank goodness for September.. let all the pumpkin eating begin!

This particular recipe I found was good but I wasn’t sure if it would work exactly, you know how that can go sometimes. I took my time and decided to make some adjustments. What worked, turned out to be a really fantastic pumpkin bread. I used my huge bread loaf pan to make one big pumpkin bread. What I thought was hilarious is I came home from work one day and it looked like someone had a lunch time party at my place. My boyfriend likes to get some of his army buds over at lunch time to play with the Xbox and eat some pizza. Well..my pumpkin bread was nearly gone. I asked Mike who ate it and he said, “I just put it out and they started eating it. They liked it.” So if the guys in the Army approve.. then I think you should try it out for yourself. ;) If you truly want vegan pumpkin bread, this one is easy, just swap out the eggs and use 3 flax eggs instead!

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Pumpkin-Banana Bread
By Fallon

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 large egg
2 large egg whites
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/3 cups stevia in the raw
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 11 x 2.5 x 5.2 inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl mash the banana till smooth but a little chunky. Add in the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed. In a medium-sized bowl, place flour, stevia, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; stir with a whisk till combined. Add flour mixture to banana/pumpkin mix and beat until just moist.

Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes or until toothpick placed in center comes out clean.

Let cool COMPLETELY in loaf pan, then flip onto a cutting board and slice 20 servings for thinner slices and 16 for large slices.

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If you go the 20 slices route check out these stats: 146 calories per slice, 4 grams of protein and fiber. Not going to lie.. I enjoyed my pumpkin bread with a vanilla protein shake. Oh yeah!

I’m off to Atlanta this weekend! Mike’s birthday is on Tuesday and I’m treating him to an Atlanta Braves game tonight and Six Flags tomorrow. I’m kind of scared of Six Flags.. but I better suck it up because it was my idea.. OH BOY! haha ;)

HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND!

Love,
Fallon

4 comments:

Chelle B said...

This bread sounds and looks delicious. Love the way you adapted it to be healthier. Yummy! Have a great weekend!

Tessa said...

I love adapting banana bread to be healthier. Makes me feel better about eating it :)

Have fun on your weekend!

Katrina said...

This bread looks really good. I'm about to open a can of pumpkin tomorrow and there will be a lot left to use for something else.

Katrina said...

Made an adapted version of your bread--de-lish! I'm working up a post for it right now.